Optimizing geo in Maya without destroying UV Coords

RabidRabit

Hey guys!

Did a bit of a hunt for this in the forums already but can't seem to find the exact answer I am looking for.

As a Max user, if I wanted to go in and collapse some verts on a textured model I can usually get away with checking off "Preserve UV's" in the toolbox on the right as long as I am not destroying the silhouette.

At work I am stuck with Maya (I do enjoy its fluid UI so far), and am looking to optimize some pre-existing models. Can't seem to get the same effect by checking off "preserve UV's" in the move tool.

Is there a more universal option for Maya or do I have to re-unwrap?

Cheers

genwu

What version of maya are you in? I was a previous NEX user (now the MTK), and there was always weirdness with preserving uv's within NEX or MTK where you would have to click preserve uv's check, but disable the MTK or NEX after you have your move gizmo showing, to use maya's default move tool. No idea if this helps, but that was one thing that worked for me.

AdvisableRobin

Not sure what effect you are looking for, but when I check off preserve UV's my UVs remain unchanged when moving.
Depending on what kinda optimization you need to do. If you just want to terminate some edges in triangles it might be easier to just add in triangles using connect component and then delete edges instead.

Also if you are using Normal maps then you'll have to rebake the mesh if you change it.

RabidRabit

@AdvisableRobin Lucky for me its just a flat diffuse. I'm also not actually changing the shape at all (It's a card with curved corners and thickness), but the original in game model is basically a construction mesh that has never been turbosmoothed so I just wanted to get in there and collapse all the wasted polygons without having to rework the texture/uv's.

@genwu I'm rocking Maya LT via steam. I would be lying if I said I knew the difference between NEX and MTK haha. Fairly new Maya user.

genwu

Ha, NEX was the plugin that Autodesk adopted into their now, Modeling Toolkit (MTK). Haven't used Maya LT, so sorry for the probable incorrect comment before lol you can't really go wrong with re uv'ing it if it's just a simple card w rounded corners, etc. Shouldn't take long i'd imagine

RabidRabit

Haha yah, waiting to do it at home now, to slow at UV unwrapping in Maya. I'm just a lowly QA guy in a studio that does mostly 2D so they do some funny stuff when trying to implement 3D. Kinda doing it under the table for one of the team leads as to avoid being exposed by the QA/Art department so can't afford having Maya open for long periods of time. So trixy.

But for the future it would be cool to know if there is a sort of universal uv preserver function.

RabidRabit

Soooo attempted this process at home expecting much better results in 3ds Max... ended up getting literally the exact same result. So, guess I am collapsing too many poly's all at once. I will just re-uv the card now :P

passerby

the problem isnt so mcuh how many polys at once, you just cant collaspe polys that have UV borders on them. so turn show texture borders on, and leave edges alone that are texture borders.

also helps to have your uv editor while doing this so you can keep a eye on it after every operation

RabidRabit

You're probably right @passerby, I didn't even check what the islands looked like before I started blowing up the geo. I'll keep that in mind going into the future, thanks!